Hope
by RedGem
Summary: Hermione and Ginny have a short talk about the inexplicable actions of the male sex.


Hope  
  
Author's Note: This story was, shall we say, 'inspired' by real events. In fact some of the dialogue is copied verbatim from a certain telephone conversation. Anyway it came to me one day that it would make a (hopefully) good story, as the plot fit so well into the Harry Potter universe. Hope you enjoy.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own the Harry Potter books (they are my brother's), but as they have resided in my bedroom for so many years, we have what I like to call a 'common law adoption'. This does not give me any legal rights. I do not own any of the characters or situations. I do not own the setting. I do not even own the dialogue, for that belongs to a certain telephone on a certain day of madness. I do not own said telephone. I do not own the computer I typed this on. I do not own a bookshelf. I do not own a red convertible. However, I do own a bottle of grapefruit juice down in the basement, so ancient and forgotten that it has begun to ferment. My life has not been lived in vain.  
  
For Sam-You are my help and inspiration. This story belongs to you even without the dedication.  
  
Hermione Granger looked up from her History of Magic Essay just in time to see a redhead climb through the portrait hole and stomp into the Gryffindor Common Room, obviously angry at the world. However, it was not the redhead one might expect to be in fits of temper. Ron Weasley was sleeping contentedly on the sofa, quill in hand, and unfinished essay on his lap. Hermione suspected that he would not be quite so contented had he known that the ink of his quill was slowly dripping down his arm, or that Crookshanks, her ginger cat was sprawled next to his face, licking his forehead. For a moment Hermione gazed wistfully at his funny little smile. In fact, she was sure he would he quite outraged if he knew how many of his fellow Gryffindors were silently laughing at the sight, wondering under what kind of twisted circumstances could cat licking be conducive to pleasant dreams. But Ron knew none of this and for that reason was able to sleep soundly, oblivious to the human firecracker that had just entered the room.  
  
No the stomper was not Ron, but his usually calm sister Ginny. She slammed the portrait hole picture with such gusto that the Fat Lady cried out in indignation. Ginny pretended not to notice her outcry and stormed on. Hermione, though obviously concerned about her friend's display, still cherished the hope that she would finish her essay this evening. She decided to calculate. As she was in the far corner of the Common Room, she could finish that one last sentence before Ginny walked over and she had to play the caring friend. She misinterpreted her friend's intentions however, and when she looked up again, smug after scribbling that last period, Ginny was near the top of the girls' staircase. Hermione sighed, disappointed at her minor defeat, and resignedly got up to follow her.  
  
When she was halfway up the stairs she heard a door slam. As she climbed higher she began to hear semi-incoherent, disgruntled mutterings. Eventually the audible part of these mutterings began to string together, almost into comprehensible phrases, such as "Bloody Bastard!" "Why? Why? Why does he have to be so." "Insufferable git" and "What is wrong with me?" Then she heard a few sniffles that sounded suspiciously like muffled sobs. Hermione could only think of one person so infuriating that he would create such a violent reaction. But what would Draco Malfoy be doing at a Gryffindor Quidditch practice?  
  
She reached the top of the stairs and hesitated for a moment. Then she heard a sharp kick directed at the wall and a surprised "Ow!" as though the kicker somehow expected stone to be soft. Hermione made up her mind. Someone had to save this girl from herself and, as Gryffindor Tower's resident hero was currently unavailable, the task fell to her. Besides, she was a Gryffindor too, and not for nothing. Surely an angry Weasley could be no more frightening than a troll. Tentatively, she knocked on the door. There was no answer. She knocked again, harder this time.  
  
"Ginny?" she called; hoping this wouldn't end in injury to either party. Silence.  
  
"Ginny, can I come in?" she wondered if she was going to be given the silent treatment all night until she heard an answer.  
  
"NO!.Oh all right, come on in." Hermione opened the door and saw Ginny hastily trying to wipe her eyes.  
  
"What's wrong? Did something happen at Quidditch practice?" Hermione inquired, still hoping that this situation could be rectified painlessly.  
  
"Nothing. And everything," Ginny replied enigmatically.  
  
Hermione saw that this might require a heartfelt talk. As Ginny had three roommates who could walk in any minute, her dormitory was not the most ideal place for spilling one's emotions. "You know, it's a beautiful afternoon, not to hot, not too cold. Perfect weather for the beginning of October. Why don't we go for a walk around the lake?" Hermione hoped that exercise and confession would banish her friend's bad mood.  
  
"Oh alright, just let me change my socks. They're drenched in mud from this 'perfect weather,'" Ginny replied acidly. 'Okay,' Hermione admitted to herself, 'This may be harder than I thought.'  
  
Soon the pair were crossing the Entrance Hall and stepping outside to meet the steady blue-gray lake. They matched steps and walked the first few minutes in silence. When Hermione could stand the curiosity no longer she asked, "Now will you tell me what's bothering you?"  
  
"He's being a bloody git, that's what's bothering me," Ginny responded finally.  
  
"Who's being a bloody git? Who's he?" Hermione was frankly baffled. Ginny had seemed perfectly happy this morning at breakfast. In fact she even commented that it was shaping up to be a great year. That opinion could of course be related to the fact that there were no semi-psychotic murderers threatening her friends and family, a marked improvement on all previous years. Hermione supposed that, relatively speaking the statement might not be entirely valid in the conventional sense of the words. Making no progress on previous inquiries, Hermione tried another tack.  
  
"Did something bad happen at Quidditch practice? You were there awfully late," she began, hoping Ginny might take opportunity to shed some light on the subject.  
  
After another seemingly endless silence, Ginny spoke. "Nothing bad happened at Quidditch, it was a good practice.In fact he was bloody wonderful!"  
  
Suspicion dawned on Hermione slowly. 'No it couldn't be,' she thought to herself but wasn't able to suppress the question. So in a slightly hushed tone she asked, "Ginny, is this about Harry?"  
  
Another silence followed, but Hermione was beginning to comprehend the taciturn language of her friend's conversation. This silence, she knew meant 'yes' to the previous question.  
  
"But you told me that you were over Harry two summers ago. You said that it was just a schoolgirl crush." Though she had suspected this a moment ago, Hermione was still unable to keep an incredulous note out of her voice.  
  
"It was! And I am!" Ginny asserted just a little to loudly. Then in a lower tone she added, "Or I thought I was."  
  
"Tell me what happened," coaxed Hermione softly.  
  
Ginny managed to keep all emotion out of her response. "It was at Quidditch practice. I was flying around, concentrating on our Hawkshead formation when out of nowhere comes a bludger. Turns out it was hit by a slightly overeager Seamus Finnigan. It got me and I went down." Seeing Hermione's concerned expression she added, "Don't worry I was only about six or seven meters up. I was hardly hurt at all, only a twisted ankle and a broken wrist. I think I had the strange delusion that I could use my hands to break my fall. Anyway, I was in the far corner of the pitch because I had been on the outside of the Hawkshead, and fell far away from the rest of the team. But lo and behold, who comes streaming in to rescue this damsel in distress, but the-boy-who-rescues-Ginny, Harry Potter, who had been searching for the snitch about fifty feet above and had the pleasure of witnessing the whole awful thing." Ginny concluded this last bit of tirade with a bitter sigh.  
  
Hermione looked perplexed. "But that's good isn't it. You're okay and Harry just came to check on you. I mean, it wasn't your fault you got hit by a bludger. Everything is fine." She gave a small smile, thinking she had just cleared everything up in a single sweeping motion.  
  
Ginny, however, just stared at her friend as though she had just recently grown a second head. She looked at her hands, then apparently finding nothing wrong with them raised them up to the sky with an expression as if to say 'Why gods, why?' Eventually, patience renewed, she proceeded to enlighten the companion she had somehow always viewed as smart.  
  
"Of course everything isn't fine," Ginny started on again, "We wouldn't be here if everything was fine. Harry then ran over, and seeing me on the ground, bent down to check on me. I was a little woozy and kept my eyes closed. I suspected I couldn't trust them if they were open. He thought I was unconscious, I guess, and picked me up and carried me over to the edge of the pitch."  
  
In a sudden display of empathy, Hermione had switched over from any previous opinions and was now hanging on her friends every word. "He didn't!" was her very un-Hermione-like response.  
  
"He did! And by that time the entire rest of the team was gathered around. Harry sent Seamus to fetch Madam Pomfrey, and a few minutes later both of them return. They came back and I was still pretending to be knocked out, so tried not to smile as Madam Pomfrey scolded Seamus, Harry and the entire civilized world for allowing a game so dangerous as Quidditch ever to be invented. Of course with a few words and a wave of Madam Pomfrey's wand I was good as new, so I had to pretend to come to. I suspect she might have known I was faking it, but thankfully she said nothing. I opened my eyes and saw Harry looking so concerned. I know I blushed like a tomato. Oh, Hermione, I've never been so humiliated in my entire life!"  
  
Hermione again snapped into comforting friend mode. Though she still wasn't exactly sure what Ginny was so upset about, that was no reason for her to forego her usual route of consolation, tapping her friends arm and murmuring "Its alright, Ginny," in what she thought to be a very soothing tone.  
  
Ginny wasn't finished, however, and all Hermione's kind words couldn't stop her once she really got going. "But that wasn't the worst of it. We continued practice and Harry let me fly again, though he still looked a bit anxious. But the last thing I wanted to do was draw more attention to myself by sitting on the bench. So I kicked off before anyone else could say anything. At the end of practice, Harry gave a quick pep talk and the team headed for the locker room. Even though all I wanted to do was run up to my room and crawl under a rock, it was my turn to pack up the balls. Well, you'll never guess who stayed behind to rescue me yet when I was sprawled across an unruly bludger."  
  
Suddenly Hermione's hand shot into the air as she shouted, "Harry!" a little too eagerly. She then looked a bit abashed as she realized that she wasn't in class, and that Ginny was in no mood to start handing out house points. "Sorry," she muttered.  
  
It seemed that Ginny's soul had been stabbed so much that day that one more pinprick didn't matter anymore. She sighed resignedly and continued, "Yes it was Harry, being all noble and wonderful again. He helped me wrestle the bludgers and put the balls away. Then he walked back to the castle and stupid little me, unable to find any reason to stay behind, walked with him. He was so nice; he even asked how my injuries were. And I couldn't think of anything else to say so I thanked him for helping me when I fell. And Hermione, do you know what he said? He looked at me and said 'Don't worry Ginny, I'll always pick you up when you fall.' And then he said he had to go to the owlrey and walked quickly away and I just stood there watching him." Ginny punctuated this last statement with another long sigh.  
  
For a few minutes neither girl said anything. Ginny seemed emotionally drained by her last outburst and Hermione didn't know what to say. They continued walking, two continents of existence, almost unaware of the other's presence through the fog of their own emotions. Hermione was startled when Ginny spoke again. Though an outgoing girl, she had never really heard her friend talk so much about herself in a deeper more emotional sense. The anger in Ginny's last statement had vanished and was replaced by an intense sadness she had never seen before.  
  
"Why, how can he do that. Doesn't he know? I mean with all that's happened in the last five years how can't he know? How can he say something like that, to me especially, without thinking it might make me."  
  
Hermione seemed to understand as she turned back to her own thoughts. "I think," she began, "that boys are just like that sometimes, never thinking of the consequences of their thoughts and actions."  
  
"Yeah," Ginny replied, "they'll say something to you, or do something for you, that you can't help but read something into."  
  
"-Or they'll tease you and get jealous of something so often that you almost know there's something there but can never really believe its true."  
  
"-And then they'll go and do something so sweet and wonderful that you can't help but feel it."  
  
"-Then they'll say something so scathingly true that its as if there is some giant neon sign over their heads shouting that what they feel but never say."  
  
Neither girl noticed as their conversation turned into side-by-side soliloquies.  
  
"-Or when they look after you and protect you from danger."  
  
"-Or when they sacrifice themselves for your protection, even when it backfires horribly."  
  
"-And for one brief shining moment you have."  
  
"And all you can do that second is."  
  
Both girls sighed. "-Hope."  
  
Ginny suddenly peered over at her friend curiously. "Nothing like that's ever happed to you, Hermione, has it?"  
  
Hermione snapped out of her reverie and looked quickly to her sides, as though to check for eavesdroppers. She turned back to Ginny and faltered, "Never!.but I can imagine."  
  
Finis 


End file.
